1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to geographic information systems and, more specifically, to updating geographic information systems to include missing information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information in a geographic information system (GIS) associates geographic locations, or geolocations, with the names of geographically-distributed features (i.e., points of interest)—such as businesses, cities, roads, neighborhoods, states, and the like—found at those geolocations. Thus, given the name of a feature, the GIS can return the geographic location of that feature. These systems are often used by search engines to respond to queries that implicate a geographic location and by advertisement servers for selecting advertisements appropriate for a geographic location, e.g., for targeting local advertisements. Consequently, it is desirable for the information in the GIS to be relatively comprehensive and for the GIS to promptly return search results.